Two Democrats have joined more than 100 Republican members of Congress to protest a proposed rule from the Obama administration prohibiting states from cutting certain taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood.
The administration raised the ire of conservatives last month when it proposed a rule that states must award Title X family planning dollars based on a provider’s ability to offer quality reproductive services and not whether it offers abortions. The rule appeared aimed at more than a dozen GOP-led states that have taken action over the last year to ban Planned Parenthood clinics from getting Title X funds.
Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, wrote Friday that the rule “appears on its face to be an attempt to subvert the will of elected representatives,” in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
They also wrote that the administration hasn’t provided enough details about how providers should be evaluated for quality and argued that the Department of Health and Human Services should consider prioritizing comprehensive health providers, such as federally qualified health centers, over clinics offering only reproductive services, like Planned Parenthood.
“We urge HHS to reconsider this overreaching and ill-supported rule,” the members wrote. The letter was signed by 110 members of Congress, including two Democrats: Reps. Dan Lipinski of Illinois and Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
Ten Republican-led states had already banned Planned Parenthood clinics from getting family planning dollars before last year’s release of undercover videos targeting the women’s health and abortion provider. But more states followed suit after they saw the videos from abortion foe David Daleiden, which highlighted how some clinics provided aborted fetal tissue for medical research.
States have been mostly blocked in their attempts to withhold Medicaid dollars from Planned Parenthood, but statutes blocking Title X family planning dollars have been allowed to stand. The rule proposed in August by HHS could dismantle those restrictions, allowing the dollars to go to Planned Parenthood although they couldn’t be used for abortions.
